


deep blue (you painted me golden)

by johnjaemark



Category: BLACKPINK (Band), Red Velvet (K-pop Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Homophobia, Vague Reference To Death, Vague References to Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:40:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24599161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/johnjaemark/pseuds/johnjaemark
Summary: Jennie and Joohyun's love knows no bounds, even if tragedy tends to follow them through every lifetime.
Relationships: Bae Joohyun | Irene/Jennie Kim
Comments: 6
Kudos: 21
Collections: Girl Group Jukebox (Round 2)





	deep blue (you painted me golden)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for GG Jukebox Round 2, inspired by Dancing With Our Hands Tied by Taylor Swift. 
> 
> thank you to m for betaing and l for listening to me ramble about this and supporting my lesbian jenrene agenda.

Joohyun was fully aware that she was beautiful. It should have been a narcissistic trait, to acknowledge your beauty so fully and unabashedly, but in her circumstance such trivial things mattered little. When it was known through your lands and even through the lands beyond your own that your face had been the one to send a thousand ships sailing, there was not much to be said about your looks. At least, that was how Joohyun thought of it.

Generally, it was odd how little thought she was allowed to have. First with Menelaus and then with Paris. It was for that reason exactly that she had managed to obtain what she had wanted to begin with. No one would look at her guileless attractive face and expect deceit from her, which was exactly what she wanted. But she had to admit, ever since arriving in Troy, she was terribly bored. There wasn’t much to do while stuck in a stuffy castle with princesses and princes and warriors who bemoaned a war  _ she  _ had started. It had been her to scheme her way from Sparta, scheme her way to a freedom from boring wifely duties.

It was for that very reason that Joohyun had found herself wandering through the endless halls of the palace, searching for nothing but hoping for something. It was in the deepest depths of the labyrinth that she saw the woman whose name she had only truly heard whispered on the tongue’s of servants. The daughter of King Priam who was shunned and forgotten, shut away for some unforgivable sin that Joohyun was not privy to. 

The princess’s dark hair fell in a silky sheet and a dark veil obscured her face as she walked past Joohyun with a steady but quick pace. Even with the veil, Joohyun could tell that her chin was raised high. A spark of amusement threaded through Joohyun. She admired the princess for managing to keep her head high despite the fact that she was no longer loved in her own home, her own kingdom.

“Your Highness?” Joohyun inquired before the princess could get too far. The princess in question stiffened, her shoulders becoming tight, but she stopped. She didn’t turn to face who had addressed her, rather waited for Joohyun to join her at the end of the hall like any princess should. It didn’t matter if she was little more than a ghost in the halls of the palace, she would still behave as she had been brought up. “Might I ask why you cover your face like that?”

The princess giggled softly behind the veil, the sound slightly muffled from the fabric that concealed her face. “Why?” She parroted, tittering just slightly. “Well, Joohyun of Troy, or is it Sparta hmm? Maybe not everyone’s face is as presentable as yours. Maybe I wish to be forgotten. Have you thought of that?”

“You’re lying,” Joohyun hedged softly, blinking at the princess. “I’ve heard of you. You’re beautiful and you were once very loved. I want to know what happened. What changed?”

The princess went still again, dead silent. No noise drifted from beneath the veil and Joohyun wondered if she had overstepped her boundaries, if she had used her face as an excuse again. She had every intention of apologizing, was inhaling deeply to do so, when the princess lifted the veil to reveal the sweet face beyond it. Her eyes were large like a doe and her lips were soft, turned into a pout. She was striking, just as Joohyun had heard even from Sparta. Her eyes … a storm of emotions were brewing, and her pouty lips pressed into a firm line that belied her true feelings.

“Have you ever been loved by a god before?” She asked, the words dripping with honey. Her eyes were molten and golden in the sunlight that streamed through the windows. “If you have not then you cannot possibly know how easily they ruin lives. I was loved by a god and for it, he took everything from me. All I have left is the promise of a future where my city falls and my family dies, a promise that my family and my people do not wish to heed. Tell me, Joohyun, have you ever been forced into such a situation?”

“Apollo,” Joohyun breathed softly as Princess Jennie’s pouty lips spread into a sad smile. Her hands were shaking at her sides, as if the truth of the matter had settled upon her now that she had spoken it aloud once more after being sworn to never speak it once more. 

“The gods are spiteful, Joohyun.” She spoke as if her words were an edict, a law that Joohyun should obey. “Because they don’t know how to be selfless, they will destroy us. Shouldn’t you know? Is it not because of Aphrodite and Zeus that you stand where you are?”

“Zeus has nothing to do with this.”

Princess Jennie’s laughter danced across the walls, echoing around them hauntingly, so distant once it returned to their ears that it might as well have been Aphrodite laughing at them. “If that’s what you wish to think.” She reached up, adjusting her veil over her face once more. “I wish you nothing but luck, Joohyun of Troy. But do not think that for a moment I do not know of your hand in this. If you wished to escape, you should have merely run instead of trading one cage for a slightly roomier cage.”

The princess’s parting words left a stinging in Joohyun’s chest, but she attempted to ignore it. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. In a week’s time Troy would fall and Joohyun and the princess would have played their equal parts in it, as if the sole responsibility did not lie on the god’s shoulders. 

*

Summers in France entailed heavy, warm air, drifting over the people’s skin and coating it in a slickness that wouldn’t leave, not even with a cool bath. The unbearable heat and humidity was only made worse by the pit that grew in Joohyun’s stomach, growing with each day that her rations thinned. Summers in France were awful, but they were even worse when the country was starving and the king turned a blind eye to it. Each morning, Joohyun was woken by the shouts and cries of outraged citizens, demanding retribution and reforms.

If she closed her eyes and squeezed tight enough, it was easy to imagine that the revolutionaries were simply young children playing in the streets. Lately, the image was harder to retrieve; it had been a very long time since Joohyun had witnessed any children in the streets, laughter drifting through her open windows. It had also been a very long time since she had time in the mornings to simply lie and think. Every moment of her life was full of movement, full of  _ desperation _ . The pit in her stomach grew with each day, an endless well, but her desperation occasionally filled her to the brim, the pit overflowing with an even more voracious feeling than hunger. 

“Joohyunnie!” This shout was not only welcomed, but nearly expected with each sunrise. This shout also soothed the well in her stomach; water in a drought, sunshine on a rainy day. 

“Jennie.”

The young lady danced into Joohyun’s room, her smile a beacon of light in the otherwise dim household. Hair had escaped from Jennie’s braid, dark strands framing her face in a way that was more striking than it should have been.  Sometimes Joohyun envied the men in the village who painted beautiful scenes , if only because she wished to paint Jennie onto a canvas. She wanted to capture that beauty, to immortalize her for people throughout the centuries to recognize and admire. She had told Jennie as such once, and Jennie had laughed, her cocoa eyes sparkling with affection.

“Joohyun, get up!” Jennie took hold of Joohyun’s wrist with one hand and used the other to hold up the folds of her skirt. “You have to see what’s going on outside. They’re really angry now.”

Joohyun almost wanted to laugh. It had been a very long time since the people of her village had not been angry. Behind their hunger laid an anger, dormant but flammable, easily stoked if needed. 

Jennie’s face was so serious, though, that Joohyun forced herself to stand and dress quickly. Jennie helped her despite Joohyun trying to wave her off, even going as far as brushing and braiding Joohyun’s hair herself. Once they were both presentable, they ran down the stairs of Joohyun’s family home, narrowly avoiding the twins that sat in the foyer. The girls slipped out of the house noiselessly, as they always did, and into the streets where others were also spilling out of their small homes.

The men of the village had gathered, their voices raising as they conversed; less of a conversation, more of a growing argument. 

“What’s happening?” Joohyun asked breathlessly, distracted enough by the climbing fear in her chest that she hardly noticed that her and Jennie’s palms were still pressed together. 

“Word has come from the city that they won’t help us,” Jennie explained, her soft lips brushing along the curve of Joohyun’s ear. No one paid any mind to the two peasant girls who clung to each other as a lifeline. “They want to storm the city, demand reforms and reprieve from taxes.” She paused before adding with a tinge of regret, “I think I will go with them.”

Joohyun turned quickly, dropping Jennie’s hand in order to grip her shoulders tightly. “You  _ can’t! _ If you go, they will kill you.”

Jennie’s lips curled into a snarl, the expression so out of place on her delicate features. “I’d rather die in the city, fighting for you and our village, than here on these streets with an empty belly.”

Tears swam in Joohyun’s eyes and that pit in her stomach grew just a bit more. Desperation edged along with it, tugging at her heart and threatening to drag it into the depths of that pit as well. She couldn’t argue with Jennie on the topic; once Jennie had set her mind to it, she would stay with it, even if it meant her demise. 

So Jennie left with the men to the capital, and Joohyun waited. Every morning in bed, she stared at the windows, waiting for the familiar battle cry of her name.

Jennie never returned. She had died in the capital with the syllables of Joohyun’s name and blood on her lips. 

The pit in Joohyun’s stomach grew until it claimed her entire body and Joohyun had allowed it. 

Joohyun died how Jennie had refused to; starving in the streets, her hand grasping at someone who was long gone.

*

Joohyun knew fear. She had felt fear at many points in her life. Fear had claimed her multiple times as a little girl, and even sometimes as a grown woman, but she had never felt fear so viscerally as she did when she was informed of the hunt for witches in her town. Not for herself, never for herself. She would accept any repercussions for what she was. She knew, though, that it wasn’t her they would target.

It would be her friend with the wicked smile and bewitching beauty. Her friend who had destroyed marriages, unaware of her hand in it. Her friend who danced along the streets in the rain and made daisy chains for little girls. Her friend whose kindness was overshadowed by her face, a resented woman in their town.

They would come for her, with faulty excuses of her magic being responsible for those she had left in ruin. As if Jennie would purposefully harm anyone, as if Jennie wasn’t more innocent than them, simply trying to exist in a world who didn’t want her. But Joohyun wanted her. Joohyun wanted Jennie more than she had ever wanted anything, and she had known it the moment Jennie rested a crown of daisies upon her head, her smile brighter than anything Joohyun had known before. 

It was because of that smile that Joohyun knew what she had to, even if it meant losing everything she had ever known, including her own life. When Joohyun displayed her magic, for what she knew could be her last time, it was not instilled with sadness or sorrow. Her magic tasted of hope, of something sweet but bitter, something everlasting. Her magic was simply her love for Jennie, taking a form, leaving a mark on the world. 

Jennie sat on the floor of Joohyun’s cottage, watched the magic with a light in her eyes that Joohyun was determined to keep alive. She reached out, thin fingers cupping Jennie’s chin and forcing the younger girl to look her in the eye.

“Jennie, run,” she whispered, her voice much too loud in the cottage that would soon be left empty. Perhaps it had always been empty, its owner too small and too quiet to truthfully fill it. Jennie would have suited it much better than Joohyun, but it was much too late for thoughts like that. “They’ll be here soon and if you’re here…”

“I shouldn’t leave you,” Jennie argued, her eyes round and glistening. “Don’t make me leave you.” 

Joohyun wished this wasn’t how it had to be. Sometimes life worked in strange sorrowful ways. Not even magic could put together the fragmented pieces of the moment and their hearts, laying crushed on the ground around them. It was easy to picture every moment they had come to share and every moment they would never come to share laying among the debris. Jennie's mouth moved in pleading words, even as Joohyun dragged her from the floor, guided her out the door and into the forest.

Her magic was unsettled; the men were on their way and there was no time left to waste. The daisy crown that had been placed with love on Jennie's head was askew and her eyes were still glistening, holding a touch of desperation as she dug her fingers into Joohyun's arm. Jennie had a way of making people listen, of making people cave, but Joohyun would not cave, not when it came to Jennie's own life. She urged Jennie deeper into the forest, ignoring the gaping emptiness that opened deep within her with every step they took.

She could lose her life if it meant Jennie didn't lose hers, she reminded herself. Jennie was younger, much more magnetizing, she would be able to leave the village and make something of herself. Jennie must have known she wouldn't win this battle. She released her death grip on Joohyun's arm, resigning herself to the pull of fate. Fate, a cruel twisted thing that Jennie would remain blissfully unaware of. 

"I love you," Joohyun said, her voice much too soft for how sharp the words felt. 

A single tear slid over the sharp plane of Jennie's face. "I could have loved you if you would have let me."

"I know that," Joohyun replied, her lips spreading into a mockery of a smile. She could pretend to be strong for Jennie. "You will find someone to love, Jennie, someone good and kind. I promise you."

There was no need for Joohyun to ask Jennie to run, the order was written in Joohyun's face and the way the air hung heavy and foreboding around them. This wasn't something that Jennie could disobey, this was all that was left for her. Joohyun watched Jennie disappear into the night.

Jennie, the most magical aspect of the village, slipping away to never be seen again.

And when Joohyun was forced under the water, told that she would either sink or swim but either way she would die, it was Jennie that she envisioned. Joohyun embraced Death with open arms, a lover that was sweeter and softer than life had been to her, one that she had come to adore. Death was gentle, but Life was not. 

Death wore a daisy crown and Jennie's face.

*

"Your husband seems to already be intoxicated."

Perhaps Joohyun should have been startled by the sound of a voice accusing her husband of being drunk and making a fool of himself, but rather than becoming stiff from anxiety she relaxed into her seat. Jennie Kim made quite the sight with her curls pushed back from her face, held in place by a headband with a feather in it. Her short beaded red dress slid around her thighs as she carefully placed herself on the opposite side of the table. She had her own glass of bubbly champagne and her head moved along with the jazz music floating through the speakeasy. 

Jennie rested her elbows on the sticky table top, dropping her chin into her palm and drumming her bright red nails against her cheek. The angle of her lips and the spark in her eyes told Joohyun that her friend was up to no good. 

“You’ve seen my husband?” Joohyun arched one perfectly groomed eyebrow, adjusting her shawl and turning to look out at the crowded dance floor. Joohyun loved to dance, but only when it was by herself or with Jennie. When it was her husband offering to do so, she knew it would be less dancing and more groping.

“I don’t have to see him to know that he’s a damn fool, Hyunnie.” Jennie’s giggle intermingling with a saxophone was nothing short of musical. “How long has he left you lonely over here? How irresponsible of him to leave such a lovely lady waiting.” 

Joohyun thought that if she wasn’t used to Jennie’s brash behavior, perhaps she would blush from those words alone. Joohyun  _ was  _ used to such things being said though, slowly and steadily becoming more familiar with Jennie with every visit to the speakeasy. Jennie was a singer there, beautiful and bold and alluring, and Joohyun was a patron easily forgotten in the shadowed corners of the basement bar. 

Jennie didn’t forget about Joohyun, though. 

“Are you singing tonight?” Joohyun asked in a valiant attempt to change the topic. 

Jennie smirked behind the rim of her champagne glass, sparkling and golden just like the girl holding it. “Not tonight. I’m perfectly content to spend my evening in your company if you’ll allow me.”

It was an amusing question disguised as a casual statement. Joohyun had never denied Jennie anything and she wouldn’t start now. 

The night faded into a world of golden bubbles and musical laughter, a comforting blanket of bliss. Joohyun didn’t have to be the happiest during the day, where she plastered on her most convincing housewife smiles at dinner parties, it didn’t matter as long as she got to spend her nights with Jennie. If she managed to spend her nights in a diner basement, her glass full of something sparkling and tangy, Jennie sitting across from her with a sunshine smile, it was worth it. 

Even if her husband seemed to despise Jennie. 

There was no rhyme or reason for it, except that Joohyun preferred Jennie as a dancing partner. She couldn’t imagine why that would unsettle him enough to shun the singer and completely turn his back on her when she joined them at their table, but men were fickle creatures. He could dislike Jennie all he wanted, the fact remained that Jennie was Joohyun’s only true friend. It didn’t matter if Joohyun tended to think about Jennie when the sun was still out and she was organizing her husband’s closet, or if she caught herself watching Jennie’s mouth even when no words were leaving it.

It simply didn’t matter, because Jennie made her happy and that was what mattered most. 

Even if they could never truly be together.

*

The year was 1995 and Jennie thought that Joohyun made a ridiculous cheerleader. Perhaps she did. It hadn’t truly been for herself anyways, it had been for her mother, who had insisted that Joohyun would have been a great addition to the cheer squad. Despite having made the squad, Joohyun wasn’t too sure about that. Jennie didn’t seem to mind the uniform so much anyways, it seemed to be her favorite part of the arragement.

For all her taunting on the matter, it never extended to the tight sweater and mini skirt that Joohyun was often required to flaunt around in.

Sometimes it struck Joohyun as funny that Jennie, who found solace in rock and grunge music, admired the uniform so much. Perhaps, it wasn’t the uniform though and more so who was wearing it. 

Lying on Jennie’s bed, a vinyl record distantly playing a Pearl Jam song, the curtains drawn shut and the rest of the world shut out, Joohyun knew that it wasn’t Jennie’s clothes or music that attracted Joohyun so easily. It was Jennie’s easy smiles and laughter, her teasing fingers as they danced along Joohyun’s arms affectionately. It was the way that Jennie showed up to every football game, despite having an avid reputation for not giving a damn about school functions. It was the way she took Joohyun out for milkshakes after every football game, curled up in the backseat of Jennie’s mom’s car. 

“How much do you love me?” Jennie whispered, her voice silvery and sweet, almost as if she was the lead singer of her own band narrating the story of her life. 

“Endlessly,” Joohyun replied in a voice that she hoped was gentle enough for the moment. Jennie’s laugh was much more gentle though, a caress to Joohyun’s soul. Her hand slid along Joohyun’s waist to her hips, holding her tight there.

Endlessly wasn’t always enough, though, was it? To love someone to the end of the world and back sometimes meant that you had to give them up, for their own good and sometimes yours as well. In high school, it’s hard to come to this realization, to understand the complexity of being both selfless and selfish at the same time. 

Jennie had held Joohyun’s heart for as long as the young cheerleader could remember, and when Jennie showed up at Joohyun’s door, bleeding and bruised, Joohyun was sure that her heart reflected it. Joohyun’s parents were at least a little familiar with Jennie, believing her to be a friend from school when she was truly so much more than that. Their eyes reflected concern in the dimming sunlight, but their desire to be polite won out over their curiosity, and they allowed the two girls to disappear upstairs into Joohyun’s room.

Jennie settled onto the bed more carefully than Joohyun had ever seen Jennie do anything. It wasn’t that Jennie was careless, but she tended to approach most things in life with a reckless abandon Joohyun wished to possess and in turn, couldn’t help but love to see in Jennie. Neither of the girls made any move to tend to Jennie’s injuries and perhaps that was the first sign that something was amiss, if the blood and bruises weren’t enough of a red flag. 

Jennie’s eyes shone when she lifted her head to face Joohyun; not from love or affection, but the pool of unshed tears that had formed there.

Joohyun’s heart dropped. She had never seen Jennie cry before. 

“Some of the football players seemed to have found out about us,” Jennie admitted in a hushed voice. For her to be so subdued seemed entirely wrong; nothing about Jennie was easy to admit defeat, to cower in silence. Jennie was riotous and loud and full of life, but somehow, whatever happened had taken that from her even for just a moment. “They weren’t so accepting of that relationship, not that I expected them to. But they can’t exactly attack you, can they? So they came after me. They called me awful things and threw punches and they told me they’d do it to you too if I didn’t back off.”

Joohyun wasn’t sure if she was chilled to the bone or down to the soul. She had always known that the football team was full of terrible boys who did terrible things, but she had never thought them possible of harming someone so close to her heart. She didn’t think they cared enough about her to do such a thing, and in her misjudgement, her terrible miscalculation, her love had been damaged. 

An apology formed on Joohyun’s lips, as if she was solely responsible for what had fallen upon Jennie, but the words became stuck in her throat and teeth. She wasn’t even sure what she would apologize for to begin with. For loving Jennie? For being fucking gay? There was not a single thing for Joohyun to give her apologies for, because it wasn’t her who had raised her hand against Jennie and it wasn’t her who hated purely based on who someone kissed.

“They will never accept us.” 

The words rang truer than Joohyun wished they would and if she was a lesser woman, she would have winced away. 

“I will always love you,” Joohyun said, her smile sad. “Endlessly.”

Jennie’s smile was a mirror of her own, except for the blood coating her gums and teeth. “I know.”

*

College, unexpectedly, was extremely intimidating. For the entire duration of high school, Joohyun had imagined what it would be like to get away from her small town, to move away to a bigger city or even a college town. It would be full of people who were diverse in looks and cultures and ideals, and there, Joohyun would find herself. Except, in all her daydreams, she had forgotten to address the part where she was  _ alone  _ at first. The idea of a new place and new people was great until she was forced to face, small and alone.

She made herself impossibly small as she navigated the halls of her new dorm building, ducking and weaving through teenagers her own age. They darted through the halls, either with purpose or a lazy self assurance that Joohyun envied, and spoke quickly through even lazier smiles. She wished she could make herself join them, make herself stand taller and shoot a winning smile that would gain her an invite to a conversation about the food hall menu. 

She didn’t know how to do that, though. She gripped her phone tightly, as if it were her life line, and found her dorm room, slipping inside. She had expected to be alone, she had expected for her roommate to be a part of the throngs of students conversing in the halls and common rooms of their dorm building, but instead there was a girl laying on one of the beds. Her jeans were a deep black, so tight they could have been painted on, but it didn’t seem to bother the girl much if the way her legs were kicked up were any indication. She wasn’t wearing a shirt, just a bright red bra, her shoulders being covered by her dark hair that spilled over them. 

The roommate was tapping away at her phone, a faint smile on her face, as if the person she was texting had said something vaguely funny, not worth a giggle but worth a reaction of some sort. It took the girl a moment to realize she was no longer alone, but once she did, she pushed herself up on her elbows, to properly observe and size up Joohyun.

Her smile didn’t fade, but it didn’t grow either. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Joohyun said back, feeling a little silly. “I’m your roommate, Joohyun.”

“I was hoping so,” the girl said, tilting her head and her dark hair slipping away from her shoulder, down her back. Joohyun followed the movement, realizing her eyes lingered too long on the pale skin of her roommate’s chest, cheeks tinting pink. “Nice to meet you, Joohyun. I’m Jennie. Do you mind that I claimed this bed?”

In a way, it felt like a test, but Joohyun was almost certain it wasn’t. Deciding on a bed couldn’t have been that important, but based on the mischief dancing across Jennie’s eyes, it was important enough. Maybe Joohyun’s answer would determine how their relationship as roommates would go, and truthfully, Joohyun had hoped for a good relationship with the person she’d be rooming with. With that thought in mind, Joohyun shook her head quickly, placing her bag on the bed opposite of the one Jennie was laying on.

Jennie’s grin grew in size, sharp and alluring, a predator luring in their prey before they properly sunk their teeth in. Again, Joohyun didn’t mind. She would play the prey if Jennie wanted, she would do a lot of things if Jennie wanted her to. The thought almost startled her, but not completely. Jennie was pretty and staring at Joohyun with an odd look in her eyes, and Joohyun couldn’t help the fact that she was painfully gay.

That was at least one thing she had figured out for herself over the course of the summer, before she had slipped away from the haze of heat and gossip of her small town. Jennie continued to smile, unaware of the warring thoughts and emotions occurring inside her seemingly docile roommate. 

“Good,” she said, perhaps a blanket statement for how well the interaction was going so far. “Onto the next question then. Are you homophobic?”   
  


The question caught Joohyun so off guard that she nearly dropped the bag she had been attempting to stack on top of the first one. She turned quickly, raising her eyebrows and her mouth forming a sharp line. 

“No. Why would I judge someone for who they love?” Joohyun snapped at Jennie with much more heat than she had originally intended. She almost felt bad for it, but Jennie’s easygoing grin hadn’t faded, which meant that Joohyun had really done anything  _ wrong _ .

“That’s good to know,” Jennie said simply. Apparently, two questions had been enough for her to feel out Joohyun, and she picked her phone back up, tapping away at it once more. After a moment, she spoke again. “Some of my friends are attending here as well, and they know some people. Would you like to join our get-together tonight?”

Somehow, Joohyun knew this would be the last question Jennie would ask her, no matter what Joohyun’s answer was. She had to answer carefully if that was the case. She thought about the students in the halls, how they had smiled at each other and spoke so easily, as if they had known each other for years and not a matter of a few well placed conversations. She couldn’t explain just how desperately she longed for that, she wanted so badly to belong. 

“I would love to join you…” 

Of course, in that moment, the two girls sitting on beds opposite one another, they couldn't possibly know what of their past or their future. They couldn’t know of the tragedy and heartbreak they had each faced, how they had died for one another and cried for another over the span of centuries. They couldn’t know that in a matter of days or maybe weeks, the two of them would be sharing one bed and several kisses. At that very moment, though, it didn’t matter much. In that moment, they were merely comfortable quietly conversing as the cusp of change hovered over them, both promising and looming. 

The two couldn’t possibly know that after being kept apart for an eternity, they would fall towards each other in a collision so beautiful and powerful that the universe would feel it for another eternity to come. They couldn’t know that after being star-crossed for so very long, they wouldn’t merely find peace, but a happy ending.

Joohyun’s eyes meet Jennie’s as Jennie recounted a story of her friends, and her heart knowingly lurched in her chest, screaming  _ I love you _ .

Joohyun smiled and allowed herself to fall into the abyss, to accept the change and most importantly, embrace Jennie. 

She had found her forever, if the universe would allow it. 

**Author's Note:**

> it has occurred to me that not everyone is familiar with the greek myths as i may be, so i would like to disclaim that the first reincarnation is jennie as cassandra of troy and joohyun as helen of troy.
> 
> i hope you enjoy this story as much as i enjoyed writing it. thank you so much to the moderates to working hard and making this possible <3


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